


catastrophizing

by patrokla



Series: means and methods [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other, Unreliable Narrator, where's quentin's head at these days? nowhere good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: And then the Monster is gone, and Eliot is back, and Quentin is - he’s. Been having trouble. Compartmentalizing. He tries to put it in different boxes, boxes for the Monster, boxes for secrets, boxes for stupid things he’s done, boxes for things that turned out okay in the end, boxes for days and days and it doesn’t fit. He can’t put it away. He tries. It doesn’t fit.or: Eliot is alive. Quentin is not helpful.





	catastrophizing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest, this is not a fun one to read. It wasn't particularly fun to write.
> 
> Carries on from harm reduction into a post-season where Quentin is alive, and really doesn't make any sense without that context (may not make sense with it, either?). 
> 
> **Warnings** : Extensive discussion of past incidents of very dubiously consensual sexual encounters between Quentin and the Monster, Quentin dealing really, really badly with said incidents (not to imply that there's a good right way he should've followed to deal with it, but I figure you should know what you're getting into - he's not in a good headspace).

_The Monster looks up from where it’s crouched in front of the fridge and says “Everything is not fine.”_  
  
_“It will be,” Quentin tells it quietly. “We’re going to figure out what to do.”_

\--

They do figure out what to do. Improbably, they figure it out, and fix it, and the only immediate major consequence was that Quentin had killed the head of the Library. Well, that was a lot less dire than their usual narrative arc endings, he thought, and he could live with it. How awful to say - he never thought he would say that. That he could live with killing someone. But there they were. He had. And he could.  
  
He was figuring out that he could live with a lot. Murder, and secrets, and love so deep and heavy in his heart that he ached with it, and letting the Monster - and the Monster - and. The Monster, who was gone, forever, permanently, which meant it was over, which meant he had to find a way to live with it.  
  
He’d thought he had a way, while it was happening. Any guilt he felt was guilt over letting Eliot’s body be used like this, any hurt he felt was physical, caused by a god that didn’t know its own strength, and then _did_ , and liked to use it.  
  
And then the Monster is gone, and Eliot is back, and Quentin is - he’s. Been having trouble. Compartmentalizing. He tries to put it in different boxes, boxes for the Monster, boxes for secrets, boxes for stupid things he’s done, boxes for things that turned out okay in the end, boxes for days and days and it doesn’t fit. He can’t put it away. He tries. It doesn’t fit.  
  
He has days where he barely thinks about the Monster at all. Everyone but him and Eliot have gotten wrapped up in the latest problem, which has something to do with the Library and - brain worms, he thinks. If you asked him, he could lay it all out, but no one does ask him. They let him be, they let him be _with Eliot_ , who is healing and unbearably fragile. He can’t - he can’t bear to be around Eliot some days, his vulnerability, the unguarded love on his face, the way he’d grabbed Quentin’s hand in the Brakebills infirmary, coming back to consciousness after surgery and said, “Q, I have to tell you, you have to know-“  
  
Quentin knows. Quentin knows a lot of things. More than Eliot knows, on some subjects. For one thing, he knows what Eliot’s body has been doing for the last four months. He knows that telling Eliot will shatter that love, shutter the vulnerability, and Quentin will get to see it all happen because Eliot tries to let him see everything, these days.  
  
He says he has a lot to apologize for. Quentin agrees, in the abstract, but in practice it feels. The magnitude feels equal. Maybe less than.  
  
It shouldn’t! He keeps telling himself that. What he did was - what the Monster would have done to, to strangers was. It would have been worse. He tells himself.  
  
It would have been.  
  
Worse, and what did happen was. Not ideal, but it was harm reduction. The least bad option. Quentin’s thought about it. He studied philosophy, he knows how to - to debate the balance of things, to come to conclusions about right and wrong - if he told Eliot this, Eliot would laugh. At his degree, at his defenses, and he would bring them all down with just a gentle hand on his wrist, a loving, sardonic remark, a kiss.  
  
Or maybe he wouldn’t. Quentin has - one of the things he’d worked on in high school, after the first hospitalization, was catastrophizing. Letting his mind spiral endlessly from one bad outcome to the next, all increasingly improbable, all feeling too real, alluring in the way a brightly-colored poisonous frog is alluring.  
  
So it’s been almost a decade since all that, but he still, he thinks about it constantly. The bad thing about learning all the clinical names for your dysfunctional behaviors is that when you keep doing them, you feel like a fucking idiot. And he does feel like an idiot, deep down and right at the surface. But in the middle, in the middle he just feels a sick relief at letting every awful possibility parade through his head. There’s something comfortable about it, resigning himself to the idea that he will never be happy.  
  
In particular, there’s something about the idea that Eliot will find out, somehow, that he’ll tell Eliot and Eliot will be disgusted, horrified, angry at Quentin’s irresponsibility, at his compromise. Quentin’s tried so hard to make things _work_ with Eliot, and they’re supposed to be working now, but they don’t, not quite. Quentin looks at Eliot and doesn’t always see him, and Eliot looks at Quentin and sees a second chance. They’re looking past each other and it’s unbearable, like they’re ignoring a solid foundation to start again on bare, muddy ground. It’s a new problem, and he doesn’t want them to fail because of it, to stumble at this first and last barrier. He doesn’t want to actively tear things apart with Eliot when they could be making something together.  
  
On the other hand, if it all falls apart because of something that - something that Quentin has already done, immutable and irreversible, well. At least it would all be over. He could stop trying.  
  
He could just. Stop. Trying.  
  
It’s an old idea, but no less shiny and glinting for its age. It catches his eye over and over again like a brilliant exotic beetle, like a bronze scorpion from some half-remembered dream. He feels it crawling down his throat and settling in his chest. It gets comfortable, even as he coughs and chokes and tries to expel it. He always tries. He doesn’t want to stop trying.  
  
He goes to Eliot’s hospital bed. Sits in the ever-present chair next to his bed, puts them on even ground. Lets himself get one last look at Eliot, Before. Then he opens his mouth and forces the scorpion out.  
  
“Something happened with the Monster.”


End file.
